Untold Power

February 13, 2023
Historian Roberts (Suffragists in Washington) delivers a solid biography of first lady Edith Bolling Galt Wilson (1872–1961). The seventh of 11 children from a Confederate family in Virginia, Edith met Woodrow Wilson at the White House in 1915. She was a widow and he a widower, and the two married later that year, though Edith thought “the role of White House hostess was absurd,” with its “unworkable mix of inscrutable rules and constant public attention.” Roberts credits Edith with modernizing the role of first lady, noting that she was the first to stand behind the president when he took the oath of office and to travel abroad in her husband’s name. More controversially, Edith hid the extent of Wilson’s disability after a stroke in October 1919 left him “bedridden, half-paralyzed, and often incoherent.” Serving as her husband’s steward for more than a year, Edith chose which matters to bring to his attention, though she claimed to have never made a decision on his behalf. As Roberts succinctly puts it, Edith became “the most powerful woman in the nation,” while pretending to be “nothing of the kind.” Enriched with incisive sketches of the era’s political figures, including socialite Alice Roosevelt Longworth, and concise history lessons on the Treaty of Versailles, the League of Nations, and more, this is a rich portrait of a singular first lady.